Holland 1-0 Japan

Hester Knibbe (1946- ; trans. John Irons)



The River

I fill what is low-lying with my passing
and drag along with me through town and country
a past that has to settle

in my depths. No matter if I shrink
or swell, I wear and tear the inside
of my skin; my bed I’m

not and yet I am. I have no eye
for left and right: drifting slowly
on my undertow, my arms at times
outstretched, so that I

take in yet more ground, I drown
in my own me. Not that I
stifle in myself, heaven

I find there and also sludge.


Kiji Kutani (1984- ; trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter)



Elephant

I dreamed about an elephant.

With its long, wrinkled trunk
covered with short, needle-like hairs
wrapped round my neck in lieu of a muffler,
I went into a darkened used bookstore
with a girl I’d happened to meet.
The young owner
energetically wiped the lenses of his glasses
as he greeted politely
only the aged elephant
following behind us.

A while after waking up
I had completely forgotten the girl’s face
and the path to the used bookstore,
but the smell of the elephant’s sigh,
so like a lazy river,
remained as vivid as a promise just made.

Sitting alone in the cold, early-morning classroom
drinking canned tea,
I felt an elephant-shaped warmth
slowly fill my stomach.

You never know.
Maybe the sky out that window will slowly end this day
without ever losing the indistinct whiteness of this hour.
It could happen,
I thought
with faint hope.

You never know.